RAND advances understanding of health and health behaviors and examines how the organization and financing of care affect costs, quality, and access. RAND's body of research—conducted primarily through the RAND Health division—includes innovative studies of health insurance, health care reform, health information technology, and women's health, as well as topical concerns such as obesity, complementary and alternative medicine, and PTSD in veterans and survivors of catastrophe.
COMMENTARY
Hospitals that perform better on the survey tend to do better on clinical measures, have fewer readmissions within 30 days and have lower risk-adjusted mortality, write Marc Elliott and Alan Zaslavsky.
COMMENTARY
If the individual mandate were ruled unconstitutional, subsidies and the age structure of premiums should keep enough healthy people in the insurance exchanges to prevent huge spikes in premiums, write Carter C. Price and Christine Eibner.
COMMENTARY
Many organizations that we have worked with indicate that this approach has helped improve reporting and communication both within and external to their organization, writes Sarah Hunter.
RESEARCH BRIEF
The use of dedicated anesthesia providers for routine gastroenterology (GI) procedures is seen as medically justifiable only for high-risk patients. Eliminating these services for low-risk patients could generate $1.1 billion in savings per year.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The use of dedicated anesthesia providers for routine gastroenterology (GI) procedures is seen as medically justifiable only for high-risk patients. Eliminating these services for low-risk patients could generate $1.1 billion in savings per year.
NEWS RELEASE
Use of anesthesia providers to monitor sedation during screening colonoscopies and other outpatient gastroenterology procedures more than doubled from 2003 to 2009 in the United States, with most of the increase among low-risk patients who may not need this service.
REPORT
There is a lack of data that address new media use and its potential relationship with adolescent sexual risk behavior and sexual health. The authors developed this matrix of measures to summarize the state of measurement in this arena and set the stage for further research. The measures were extracted from studies of media use, media effects, and interventions that employ new media to improve sexual health. Several new items are also…
NEWS RELEASE
Researchers from the RAND Corporation and other institutions have begun pilot-testing a web-based tool designed to help parents and adult caregivers determine whether to seek urgent medical attention for a sick child with flu-like symptoms.
REPORT
This briefing identifies policy questions related to compensating service
members and their survivors for fatality risk. After comparing patterns in the
characteristics of combat fatalities with those of fatalities occurring in other
contexts, it discusses the Department of Defense's current compensation
programs. Policymakers may benefit from both empirical studies and comparisons
with compensation programs that exist in other contexts.
PROJECT
Employment trajectories following the onset of disability are poorly understood. Employer-focused policy interventions may reduce uptake in public disability insurance and disability-induced early retirement.
PROJECT
As the Affordable Care Act expands health insurance coverage in the U.S., the "cost" of applying for SSDI will decline for many. Studying the effect of Massachusetts health care reform in 2006 may provide insights into the impact the ACA may have on SSDI applications and awards.
REPORT
RAND Europe evaluated the National Institute for Health Research Leadership Programme to help the English Department of Health consider the extent to which the programme has helped to foster wider research aims and extract lessons for the future.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
As health care reform expands the use of "report cards" to grade health care providers, greater attention to reporting methods may be needed to assure the quality of such efforts.
NEWS RELEASE
As health care reform expands the use of "report cards" to grade health care providers, greater attention to reporting methods may be needed to assure the quality of such efforts.
COMMENTARY
Never before in our nation's history have our service members and their families been so challenged and never before have their struggles (and successes) been the topic of so much scholarly attention, writes Sarah O. Meadows.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study developed a vision-targeted health state classification system based on the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25 (NEI VFQ-25).
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study seeks to develop a new prognostic model, the Patient-Reported Outcome Mortality Prediction Tool (PROMPT), for six-month mortality in community-dwelling elderly patients.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
State small-group health insurance reforms, implemented in the 1990s, aimed at controlling the variability of health insurance premiums and to improve access to health insurance. These reforms only affected firms within a specific size range, and as a result, they may have affected the size of small firms around the legislative threshold and may also have affected the propensity of small firms to offer health insurance.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The authors compare the experiences of elderly Medicare beneficiaries in Puerto Rico with their English-preferring and Spanish-preferring Medicare counterparts in the U.S. mainland.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The authors analyze data from the 2008 National Association of City and County Health Officials Profile of Local Health Departments survey, and propose an improved composite measure of centralization that can be computed for all local health departments within a state, as opposed to a single state respondent, as done in 1998.
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